Android reaches 700,000 apps, now matches Apple

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Google and Apple both like to update everyone from time to time on how many apps they have in their respective app stores. This has been a purely academic disclosure for years now — both platforms have more apps than you can really get a handle on with your squishy human brain. Google has just announced that it has about 700,000 Android apps in the Play Store, and that gives us an interesting point of comparison. That happens to be the same number Apple has.

Apple got a year long head start on Google when the iPhone launched in 2007. The App Store rolled out a year later just as Google was releasing the first Android phone. It then took the better part of a year to get paid apps in the Android Market, as it was known at the time. In the meantime, Apple continued to attract developers that put out tens of thousands of apps.

Google’s fortunes changed in late 2009 when the Motorola Droid debuted with Android 2.0. This phone excited developers and finally started to build momentum for Android apps. Google also branched out to music, movies, books, and magazines earlier this year. It ditched the Android Market branding in favor of Google Play at the same time.

Apple continues to point out at every opportunity that its platform is more profitable for developers. Cupertino has paid out over $6.5 billion to app developers since 2008. Google has not released similar numbers, but the figure is thought to be much lower.

700,000 apps is a ludicrous number — it’s more than anyone could ever need. We’ve arrived at the point where it’s clearly about quality over quantity. It doesn’t matter how many apps you find in a store if it doesn’t have the ones you want. For example, Apple has pushed developers to build apps specifically for the iPad. This has led to a much broader selection of tablet-optimized apps for iOS. Google is still playing catch up in that respect.